‘Around the World in 80 Days,’ at New Theater at 45th Street

From left, John Gregorio, Bryce Ryness and Jimmy Ray Bennett in "Around the World in 80 Days."

Michael Blase

By NEIL GENZLINGER

June 6, 2013

Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days” is a story about the kind of trip any frequent traveler has experienced: a mishmash of highs and lows, of peak experiences, vexing missed connections and other catastrophes. The stage version of the tale now at the New Theater at 45th Street brings its own layer of mishmashing to the telling. It’s an odd combination of slick steampunk and cheesy vaudeville, high-tech razzle and low-budget dazzle.

The production, by Cedric Yau and the Yow! Theater Company, sometimes works nicely and other times is overbearing. Bryce Ryness is Phileas Fogg, the traveler who bets acquaintances that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. The director, Rachel Klein, has him playing the role as if he were carved granite, comically stiff and emotionless. It’s funny, but making your hero a statue leaves a void at the center of your production that creates a directing challenge.

Ms. Klein’s solution is to surround Phileas with frenetic activity and lots of it. This five-actor adaptation, written by Mark Brown and staged at the Irish Repertory Theater in 2008, has always been intended as a broad-brush comedy, but everything is in overdrive here, with the four supporting players (each in multiple roles) mugging constantly and running through every bit of stage business in their repertory.

It’s amusing at first, but as things roll along it starts to become wearying, especially the efforts of John Gregorio as Passepartout, Phileas’s French valet. (Rounding out the cast are Shirine Babb, Jimmy Ray Bennett and Stephen Guarino.) The show would be funnier with half as much forced frenzy and twice as much of the innovation it flashes at times in conjuring Verne’s various modes of transport.

An elephant is delightfully brought to life with a dryer hose and other tidbits. A pivotal train ride is recreated using parasols for wheels. These shoestring touches materialize somewhat incongruously on a fairly elaborate set by Robert Andrew Kovach that — thanks to painted walls and sound effects that come from every direction — seems to fill the theater. This high- and low-tech mix isn’t bad, necessarily; just unusual. In any case, the projected map that traces the journey as it’s happening is a nice touch.

Depending on your taste, you’ll either love the fast-paced jumble on display here or be put off by it. But either way, you’ll admire the energy in this production. That’s a fitting attribute for a story set in 1872, when the energy-dependent industrial age was hitting its stride.

Correction: June 15, 2013

A theater review on June 7 about “Around the World in 80 Days,” at the New Theater at 45th Street in Manhattan, misspelled the producer’s given name. He is Cedric Yau, not Cederic.

“Around the World in 80 Days” is at the New Theater at 45th Street, 354 West 45th Street, Manhattan; (866) 811-4111, aroundtheworldinnyc.com.